Creation Science Store

Old Earth Creationism

Old earth creationism is the
belief in
religious creationism that stays with the current
scientific community's assessment of the Earth's age.
The view is accepted by a large number of
Christians. Some have made alternate interpretations
of the scripture in keeping with the evolutionary time
line. Most old earth creationists hold that the flood
detailed in
Genesis 6-8 was a
local or regional flood.

Contents

Types of
beliefs

There are three main schools of
old-earth creation science thought:

Progressive creationism - also known as day-age
creationism, is an attempt to harmonize the
Bible with current scientific beliefs such as
stellar evolution, and the
fossil record. It assumes the days of the creation
were actually broad lengths of time, and proposes that
God separately created the various kinds of animals and
later man, but over a long period of time. It also
accepts the evolutionary time scale (simple to complex
over millions of years) but has more input from God.
Hugh Ross and the
Reasons to Believe ministry teaches progressive
creation. The illustration above is quite similar to a
progressive-creationist timeline chart.

Gap theory creationism assumes that a vast period of
time elapsed between the first two verses of
Genesis. Most variations of this theory interpret
Genesis 1:1 as the first creation, which included
the creation of the heavens, the
earth, plants and animals, and even a race of humans
preceding
Adam.
Perhaps billions of years then elapsed, during which
time Satan and his angels fell and corrupted the
inhabitants of the earth.
God
then judged and destroyed the earth and all its
inhabitants. Thus, the earth became "formless and void"
(Genesis
1:2 ) and remained that way for eons. The second
creation, according to the gap theory, began in
Genesis 1:3 with the first day of the familiar six
days of creation of the (re)creation week.